


Anamnesis

by wrongstation



Category: General Hospital
Genre: F/M, Post-Hatesex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 17:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13839813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrongstation/pseuds/wrongstation
Summary: When Carly comes down the stairs, it's the last thing he expects to see.





	Anamnesis

**Author's Note:**

> Note: I wrote this back in 2012. It was my first Jarly, and written while I was a wee bit tipsy. I've updated it a tad to fix some tense issues.
> 
> anamnesis - the remembering of things from a supposed previous existence (often used with reference to Platonic philosophy).

When Carly comes down the stairs, it's the last thing he expects to see. He knows her. He knows the post-coital look, he knows the sex hair. He knows the way her hands immediately seek an article of her conquest's clothing. She's wearing a shirt that isn't his, and Jason knows. He recognizes it. This penthouse, that shirt, this woman, it all belongs to Sonny.

It hits him in waves, pain rippling and contorting until he isn't sure if he's feeling her or the bullet. Aren't you supposed to have these flashes when you're dying? Reliving your life, remembering, reminiscing in the blink of an eye before your heart stops beating and your brain dies. He's alive, he knows he's alive and he doesn't think his injury is fatal, but it feels like death. It feels like his final moments as he sees it all in flashbacks.

The girl at the jukebox. Mysterious. Bold. They dance, her hands slide into the back pocket of his jeans. He doesn't even know her name when he takes her upstairs and takes her body until her ragged nails are scraping down his back.

A friend he never expected. A place to hide. A barking dog in his corner, protecting him, defending. Standing up for him even though he never asked her to.

The woman standing in his doorway, soaking wet. Telling him she made a mistake. Begging him to claim parenthood on a child he didn't father. Broken. Shivering. Beautiful. 

A disaster, flying into his life and giving him things he didn't think he wanted. Things he couldn't have with Robin. Eating all his food and talking his ear off, spending his money, watching him read the baby bump books about Africa as he thinks about a family he might actually get to have.

A sick mother, postpartum eating at her will to nourish the beautiful little boy that had come from his love and his brother. A woman that begged him to take care of Michael. Be his father. I love you, Jason, please just love him too.

The desperate mother that marries his brother to keep custody of the son he thinks of as his own. Michael is gone. She's gone. She sneaks over and steals kisses, promises a life that he knows in his heart they'll never have.

The woman he kisses goodbye at the elevator. His regrets streaming like her tears but they say goodbye just as AJ steps onto the floor and demands her back, as if she's nothing more than property. The woman he vows to set free.

A second chance, a redemption song, a risk that wears the ring he put on her finger. He doesn't regret kissing her first, he doesn't regret baring his heart, even though he knows he might one day. A woman worth the risk. A woman who bulldozed his walls.

As the memories stop, he's left standing in the doorway. She's frozen, recognition of a mistake written across her face, her heart breaking right alongside his. He's not stupid. He can smell Sonny's cologne from a mile away, and Carly is watching him with such remorse that his stomach turns. It's never hurt like this. It's never felt like everything was about to end.

"Jason..." 

He knows what he's about to hear. The woman with the silver tongue, the woman he knows he'll forgive a thousand times over for every transgression. They'll get past it, but tonight he has to go. He has to ride. He has to remember what life was before she breezed in and turned it upside down. Before she promised him a family that crumbled into dust before he could hold it. A family he never knew he wanted.

He's gone, out the door, and he'll spend the next month on his bike. He'll try to forget her, but he knows that when he gets back, she'll be there. 

She breaks his heart, but Carly is home.


End file.
